No news on cancellations or special proceedures posted from EK management as yet. Not surprizing as it's the weekend!

Bombing Beirut certainly makes it a war zone. Are we still operating there? Does the amazing security dept have any plans or are they Happy that there is no threat to our safety? Don't think I'll be turning up for a Bey flight in the near future.

Let me see, according to what I read on BBC.com, Israeli ships have entered Lebanese waters to block ports, and the country's only international airport is closed after Israeli air strikes on Thursday.

Overnight air raids on targets across southern Lebanon left 27 people dead.

And all of this is because . . . Hizbollah guerillas have captured two Israeli soldiers? Talk about a rogue state!

It's amazing to think that a nation founded on the precepts of anti-discrimination and avoidance of persecution should think that they have a right to act in this way. I suppose it is the middle east and all the lessons that the western world learnt from the atrocities and persecutions in ww2 don't apply. Blooody nutters! I have nothing against any of them. Just find it hard to see where it will end and why it can't be reolved differently.

The killing and abduction of soldiers on a sovereign country's soil by a militia controlled by government ministers of a neighbouring country would be seen as an act of war by any responsible democratic government, anywhere in the world.

Sadly, the people have inadvertently put power in the hands of 2 terrorist organisations. The statement from Hezbollah that 'they have no intention of escalation' is beyond belief. They (and the Syrians) knew exactly what would hapen but they were happy to use the people of the Lebanon and Gaza strip as pawns in their own little power plays. Any organisation that refuses to accept a nations right to exist cannot be surprised if that nation finds it unnaceptable to negotiate with them.

I have now seen both sides of the arguement and my opinions have wavered in both directions. I choose to support neither side but find myself exasperated at some of the organisations that are prepared to use the average joe in the street as cannon fodder to support unwinnable crusades.

when you have a country like Israel with on one side Hamas who refused to recognised Israel and on the North Border Hesbollah troups who has been there for ages, support by iran who´s president want to see Israel wipe out of the map, i can understand the over-reaction of israel today.....

With the hightest concentration of human beings in any confined area, the Gaza strip is the largest present day ghetto in the world, with all the trimmings of restrictive rules and policies imposed by the Israelis as was done onto them in Warsaw, Frankfurt etc... during and before WW2.

Today Israelis are imposing these restrictions on the Palestinians, the same whose lands have been taken away year by year, war by war; yet you would think that Jews who have experienced the same would know from history not to allow it to repeat itself.

But what we hear and see is oblivious to history and the rethoric of the holocaust is now starting to wear thin, for with this ongoing parody of ethics and humanity, the credibility for the "rasion d'etre" of the state of Israel is beginning to wane and the resorting to violence in both the politcal and miltiary sense is purposefully proof of this.

How long will this go on? is the question and the longer it carries on the more the west will subject itself to the wrath of millions of Muslims and Arabs the world over and anyone today who has any common sense.

Today Beirut, tomorrow where else, Israel is the rogue state in the region and despite the leading the way, it has now fallen to rank amongst the likes of Syria and Yemen.

It is time this problem is taken for its true value and addressed via the proper means and not these farcical road maps that lead to no where but further conflilct.

The way I see it, like with rival inner-city gangs, this is a battle between two different terrorist groups, namely Hezbollah and Israel, with civilians who happen to habitate the ground these tiffs are settled on as spectators and more often than not, the greatest "casualties".

While Hezbollah may be involved in Lebanese politics and may have a political wing, it is as absurd as holding all of the US population responsible for the actions of the radical Christian-right wing of the Republican Party.

27 Lebanese civilian deaths is a proportionate response for 2 military members being held hostage?!?!? Wow, the exchange rate must be worse than I thought!

While much hand wringing goes on about Iran (and I agree with some of it, by the way), to mention Isreal is talk about a rogue state, with weapons of mass destruction that routinely threatens it's neighbors. But in the trite political view of the US-- "but at least they are OUR sons-of-a-bitch"

Keep in mind recent Gulf event and look further down the track G.Bush supports the current actions by Israel, which ties in nicely with the remaining axis of evil (and all it's oil). Prove a few links of Iranian support for Hezbollah and their obvious uraniam enrichment activities across the pond and off we go again (GW3).